CGTrader sales dropped significantly

Hi yes.. similar here.. I think everybody is experiencing this.. This together with the new fee structures which forces the aellers to increase theier prices to make a cut at all and this again is pushing clients back again. Engaging in a subscription and getting your model for 1.40 $ or somewhat like this together with 25 other models simialr as cheap is most probably much more appealing for the clients.A similar think happened with Turbosquid which is totally uninteresting for artists now. Probably same will happen with Cgtrader now.. For cgtrader this might be a good way but it is definetely not for the sellers which are delivering the good cgtraders is taking profits from.

I believe sales are being affected by AI models, which are inexpensive or free; the advancement of these tools is increasingly saturating the market for 3D models.

They are destroying themselves.
They believe they will profit from these strange subscription models that offer customers designs for nominal fees; however, in the short term, the output of creative designers will decline—as sales have already dropped.
Consequently, the site’s customer base will gradually shrink, leading to a downward spiral into the abyss.

That's why I left the platform. Perhaps the website should rename itself to CGTraitor.

Hi TazMan2000,

I'm experiencing the exact same issue over the last few weeks. Despite updating my asset titles, tags, and pricing structure, views and conversions have dropped significantly across my store.

Glad to know I'm not the only one noticing this trend, though it's definitely concerning. Hopefully, CGTrader's search index or traffic stabilizes soon.

It’s striking how CGTrader—which used to be one of my main sources of income—now barely generates any sales. I haven't sold a thing in months. I used to earn around $1,000, but now I bring in a measly $10 a month. I’ve practically abandoned the platform; I don’t upload anything there anymore.

I do 3d modelling in my free time, it's just a hobby for me and I'm not an expert. CGTrader was just a "nice bonus" to my main job. My models are simple low-poly props.
Anyway, I used to earn about $80-120 per month with about 10-15 sales per month.
Over the past year, my sales have dropped by 90%. Now I make only one or two sales a month, and there have even been months with no sales at all.
My payout rate has dropped from 77% to 64% and then dropped again to 58%.
I spend years to reach this percent of 77 by uploading my models with all the high quality requirements, to end up with 58%?

Subscription earnings: $0.73 or $0.88 per model that originally costs $12-$16 . Are you kidding me?

CGTrader is literally dead.

Who would have thought, just three years ago, that TurboSquid with its 40% would turn out to be better and more stable in the long run?

I'm speaking as a customer, not a modeller on CGTrader: the situation is terrible, and it’s getting out of control.

Since around August this year, I’ve noticed a huge increase in low-effort AI scans and models stolen from other sellers on the platform. There’s so much of this stuff that finding something new and worth buying has become frustrating.

Many of these sellers don’t even label their uploads as AI-generated. They put obvious AI scans alongside regular models, making it harder to find professional work. As a customer, this puts me off buying anything at all. I’ve gone looking for something to buy and ended up giving up because of it.

I think CGTrader needs much stricter verification for new sellers and a more careful review of their first uploads. That could prevent a lot of this content from flooding the marketplace in the first place.

This could also help with sales. It’s hard to buy or sell quality work when the marketplace is buried under AI slop. Even if hardly anyone buys those uploads, they still clutter search results, bury legitimate artists’ work, and make customers worry about paying for a stolen or unusable model.

Customers need to trust what they’re buying. Right now, that trust is being damaged, and CGTrader needs to take this seriously.

I almost stopped uploading new models.
It is getting worse and worse. Even if admins will start fixing the situation it may take time ... may be it is already too late.
I stopped uploading, I think , many others stopped uploading. So CGTrader may soon stay with their beloved AI artists only.
As a result buyers will avoid the platform.
As a result many artists may find another way to earn money and they will not come back even when situation is fixed.

(Haven't uploaded anything in a decade, but anyway:) Paradoxically, with the rampant AI reconstructions from images, it's safer to keep image resolution low and not provide consistent screenshots from several angles. Use radically different lighting & backgroumd and such. And God forbid offering a 3D flyaround scene. Perhaps sites like this one should start imposing random geometric gridding on top of the screenshots that breaks the algostealing: lines and patterns that get plastered across images.